


Where the Pavement Cracks

by somedayisours



Series: Fanfiction.net Can Suck My— [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Character Death, Gen, It goes AU during the fight on the bridge, Natasha is not this dumb, Nor am I this edge-y, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Out of Character, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2020-04-06 11:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19061281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedayisours/pseuds/somedayisours
Summary: Natasha doesn't clip the Winter Soldier when she shoots him.





	Where the Pavement Cracks

She watches the bullet strike his temple and yet he still raises his gun, she's sure that he really is a ghost. Or at least unkillable.

That thought remains true until his body pitches forward and he falls from the bridge, landing with an undignified and inaudible thump only a few feet away from her position. It occurs to her, along with probably the rest of the world, that she might have killed the Winter Soldier. The realization sets in quick and hard.

When the ghost doesn't rise Hydra flees, and suddenly it's only her, Steve, Sam, and everyone else abandoned on the street turned battleground.

"Is he dead?"

"Maybe," Natasha responds without inflection, her gut telling her what she already knows. Not moving does not equal dead. Dead is dead.

Steve leads the approach, flipping the Winter Soldier over onto his back with his shield raised in preparation for a retaliating strike that never comes. He reaches forward and rips the muzzle from the Winter Soldier's face then, the goggles already lost. 

Steve tenses, his shoulders bunching up moments before he croaks out a garbled word she can't make out.

He speaks again, clearer and more of a plea.

"Bucky?"

Steve reaches out, again, bridging the short gap between himself and the Winter Soldier's apparent body. His hand pressed against the dead man's face. She's able to catch a glimpse of the tears that have sprung in Steve's eyes when she moves around Steve and Sam to get a better look at the body.

Steve looks to Sam then, Natasha can feel his pain in the air. She knows that the questions he has on his tongue, none of which any of them have the answers to.

There's a twitch of movement out the corner of her eye, she catches as she looks at Sam. But Steve has started to push the hair out of the Winter Soldier's face to get a better look at the killing blow and she has to reassure herself that she's killed the ghost because Steve would have caught that movement.

The Winter Soldier strikes faster than any of them can respond to, and for a moment cold dread works its way into Natasha's heart. There is no mistaking the knife that the newly named Bucky has drawn is meant to bury itself in Steve Roger's throat.

It doesn't.

Steve reacts with a scream that sounds more like a wounded animal than a man, his hands diving around his friend's throat as he attempts to save the Winter Soldier. It's in vain.


End file.
